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Algorithms are making us small-minded

Your life is mapped out for you but, not in the way that
you think. How predictive algorithms narrow your perspective – and ultimately
your choices.

By Sydney Finkelstein 13 December 2016

We live in a world of curation. The internet — aided by
algorithms that predict what we search, buy, listen to, read, watch and even
who we want to date and marry — expertly helps to us find what we want.

Well, as long as it’s similar to whatever we’ve liked in
the past.

And there’s the rub. The ubiquity of incredibly powerful
algorithms designed to reinforce our interests also ensures that we see little
of what’s new, different and unfamiliar. The very things that are at the heart
of learning, understanding and innovation. Rather than taking us out of our
comfort zone, the digital revolution is enabling each of us to live happily in
our own worlds, and in the process closing down opportunities for originality,
spontaneity and learning.

Because we flock to Amazon to buy what their algorithms
say we should buy. Because we read news that reinforces what we already
believe. And because we even rely on dating sites that specifically seek to
match us with similar people.

The consequences of living in our algorithm-enabled
straightjackets are not trivial. Intellectually and socially, we are paying a
price.

Take, for example, the recent presidential election in
the US. The stark political
polarisations became arguably more entrenched and increasingly evident here as
the tendency of people to seek out confirmatory evidence to support their
inherent beliefs or intuition became a self-reinforcing cycle. Different
Americans are living in different versions of the same country. By limiting
ourselves to certain news organisations and certain pundits, our curated
analyses of current events begin to look spectacularly different to those of
others with different outlooks and life experiences.

The problem of narrow-mindedness crosses over into
business and leadership. Not only has research shown time and time again that
open-mindedness improves our sense of wellbeing, but it also leads to better
decisions. That was certainly the case with superbosses, those exceptional
leaders who built thriving businesses based on agility and creativity in both
managerial mindset and business practices.

And then there’s a recent paper published in the
Strategic Management Journal that illustrates the importance of both top-down
and bottom-up processes for noticing and exploiting new opportunities. While
top-down processes, like drawing from previous experiences, are important, they
can sometimes blind us from noticing unexpected changes in the industry. In
contrast, bottom-up processes, or noticing changes in the environment despite
pre-existing knowledge, allow us to pay attention to and exploit unexpected
opportunities the competition might miss.

What comfort zone?

But, we can fight back against the dominance of
algorithms to keep us, and our thinking, from being pigeonholed to what we’ve
done before. It’s not as hard as we might think to broaden our scope and keep an
open mind in our professional and personal lives.

By selecting unusual candidates, you’re more likely to
hear different perspectives and come up with innovative ideas

At the office, start with the people you hire. By
selecting unusual candidates, people who might think differently than others
already on the team, you’re more likely to hear different perspectives and come
up with innovative solutions or ideas.

Algorithms scan CVs for key words or phrases, but what if
you also spent some time reading them individually or tried to search for
different key words? Or even better, actually get out there to scout for talent
wherever you can find it.

To foster creativity in the long term, when you’re the
one in charge, embrace a mindset of change. Rather than constructing an
organisation or team along a specific formula, build it around a set of
principles and invite employees to come up with new approaches to work that
adhere to those principles, but may otherwise be radically different. Again,
this was a hallmark of superboss leaders like Jay Chiat, founder and long-time
CEO of advertising agency Chiat/Day, who would reward employees for doing
things differently, even if those efforts fell short.

More importantly, be honest with yourself and recognise
if this narrowing pattern of behaviour seems like you. You might then consider
intentionally selecting something out of your standard framework on a regular
basis.

The next time you eat out for example, try a cuisine you
normally wouldn’t go for. Watch a movie from a completely different genre than
you’re used to. Or join a book club. Devote some time to speaking with someone
as different from you as possible at the next party or event you attend — and
ask them for recommendations of what to read, eat and watch.

There are also websites and apps that can help.
Procon.org, for example, presents opposing arguments to controversial issues,
while apps like Earbits allow you to discover new music by clicking on
different genres, rather than presenting users with more of what they already
like.

It will probably take effort to seek out new things. But
as the new year approaches, think of it this way: As algorithms and artificial
intelligence become better at predicting our needs and narrowing our focus, our
ability to adapt and keep learning new things may become crucial to our value
as people — in business and in life.

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